Politics

Why I Want To Be President Of Nigeria – Tinubu [Full text]

Published

3 years ago

February 23, 2023

All Progressives Congress, APC, presidential candidate Bola Tinubu on Thursday penned an open letter to Nigerians ahead of the Saturday’s election

The former Lagos governor and co-founder of the ruling party won the presidential ticket at the special convention June 2022.

Despite rumours about his health and fitness, Tinubu campaigned across the country, promising Nigerians a better life.

In his letter on Thursday, the former Senator hailed the “enthusiastic crowds” that trooped out to receive us him and other APC leaders.

Tinubu said from his interaction with the people all over the country, the APC despite challenges, “enjoys tremendous goodwill among the vast majority of our people”.

The full text below:

“In all the states we have visited, there are visible landmarks of the huge impact the President Muhammadu Buhari administration has made in terms of infrastructural development in the form of rural and urban roads and expressways, modern railway tracks, as well as improved airport facilities, among others.

“Millions of our poor and vulnerable people have benefitted from the various social intervention programmes of the Buhari administration. The amounts disbursed to these categories of our people are unprecedented in terms of the sheer transfer of resources to the less privileged sections of the population not only in our country but in Africa.

“It is remarkable and ironical that those who were in power for 16 years earned far higher revenues from petroleum than we did and yet were unable to effectively tackle neither infrastructure nor poverty. They now have the temerity to cast aspersions on the APC administration.

“Our campaign tours demonstrated clearly to us that you, our people, are not deceived. Of course, we are aware of the hardships suffered by our people and the challenges confronting our country. Some of these could have been mitigated by better conceptualized and articulated policies. The truth is that there can be no perfect government in any human community.

“Some of the problems are also of global origin such as the unanticipated COVID-19 pandemic that disrupted economies worldwide or the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war that has disrupted global food and fuel supply chains.

“It is clear to me that there is a lot that the Buhari administration has done that are laudable in the areas of infrastructure, agriculture and poverty alleviation. We must build upon these achievements. There are also some sectors where we must adopt new approaches and stress new priorities.

“What is clear is that the Office of the President of Nigeria is not one of pleasure. Rather, it will demand the highest standard of hard work, discipline, focus, determination and commitment on the part of the next President.

“I pledge solemnly that my Vice-President and I will dedicate ourselves wholeheartedly to working for the greatest good and happiness of the greatest number of Nigerians.

“Senator Shettima and I have outstanding records of high performance in public office as Governors of our states. In Lagos, where I served as Governor for 8 remarkable years, I led a team of talented, hardworking, creative, intelligent and purposeful people that recalibrated governance and set new standard in good governance that continues to propel the state to greater growth and development till date.

“That Lagos State is the 5th largest economy in Africa didn’t happen by chance. It is a product of consistent hardwork and creative leadership. We seek to demonstrate on national scale that energy and capacity that transformed our states to bring prosperity to all Nigerians.

“Our administration will work to ensure not just a farewell to poverty but also usher in an era of prosperity in our country. To achieve this, we will re-engineer our security architecture to enhance the capacity of our armed forces and security agencies to guarantee the safety of the lives and properties of our people.

“This will enable our farmers to return fully to their farms with the resultant increase in food production and affordability. We will initiate measures to boost the revenue earnings of our farmers and improve the standard of living in our rural areas, home to the vast majority of our people.

“We will task our ingenuity to drastically enhance the country’s revenue generating capacity so that we can adequately fund and fundamentally improve the quality of social services in education, healthcare and housing, among others.

“We are determined to ensure that incessant strikes by unions in our public universities become a thing of the past. We will make facilities and welfare packages in our health sector compare with the best in the world so that many of those health professionals who have migrated to other lands will be attracted back home. Ensuring adequate and uninterrupted electricity will be one of our cardinal priorities.

This will help boost the performance of the industrial sector and create jobs on a massive scale for our teeming youths. We shall put in place a robust and virile credit system so that more people can acquire the basics of life such as housing, cars and household equipment and pay gradually. That will have the immediate effect of reducing the motivation to resort to corrupt means of wealth accumulation.

“To fight corruption, we will also provide better welfare and motivation to the judiciary to perform its functions with integrity while we will also enhance the autonomy of the anti-graft agencies and provide them the necessary incentives to make them less vulnerable to corrupt inducement.

“We are of the firm belief that Nigeria is too endowed and blessed for any of our citizens to live in abject poverty. We are a hardworking and talented people destined for greatness. We are determined to offer the visionary and creative leadership to help actualize Nigeria’s immense potentials.

“We do not delude ourselves that we are supermen with the magic wand to miraculously solve all our country’s problems. But what I solemnly pledge is the determination to select the best and brightest talents in Nigeria to help our country achieve her manifest destiny for the good of her people and the glory and pride of the black man.

“To help actualize this, I urge you to turn out in large numbers on Saturday to vote for Kashim Shettima and I on the platform of the APC.”

Politics

Enugu Gov Mbah Set to Dump PDP

Published

7 hours ago

October 10, 2025

Editor

Enugu State Governor Peter Mbah is set to dump the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, for the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, next week.

National Chairman and Deputy National Chairman, South-East, of the APC, Nentawe Goshwe Yilwatda and Emma Eneukwu, respectively, broke the news in Abuja on Friday.

The APC national leadership revealed Mbah’s imminent defection to the ruling party while swearing in the newly inaugurated members of the Enugu State caretaker committee, led by former state chairman, Ben Nwoye, at the party’s national headquarters in Abuja.

The governor is expected to announce his defection at an event schedule to hold in the state next week.

Chairman of the newly inaugurated caretaker committee, Nwoye, who confirmed the development, said the governor will join the ruling party alongside all his appointees.

There are speculations that Taraba State Governor, Agbu Kefas, is also set to join APC.

Politics

Makinde Calls Out Umahi Over Coastal Highway Cost Analysis

Published

10 hours ago

October 10, 2025

Editor

Oyo State Governor, Seyi Makinde, has weighed in on the cost of the controversial Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway project that was approved by President Bola Tinubu.

Makinde, who spoke at an event in a viral video on Friday, said there was no need for the Minister of Works, David Umahi, to be “dancing around the cost” of the project.

The governor was reacting to a heated exchange that unfolded live on television between Umahi and Arise TV presenter Rufai Oseni on Tuesday.

Oseni had requested the minister to analyse the cost of the project, kilometre by kilometre.

The request didn’t sit well with Umahi, who declared himself “professor” of practice in engineering while elaborating that the costs of the road in kilometres are not the same and would be too complicated for the journalist to understand.

He said, “These are elementary questions. And it makes no sense (sic). A process is ongoing, payment has been made, and you are saying, ‘how has this money been utilised?. The money is meant for the project, and it will be paid according to the work done.

“When a certificate is generated, and it is approved through a process in the Ministry of Works, it will then be given to the funders, who will, in turn, check if the works were done. How can you be asking for cost of kilometre? The prices are different. The next kilometre is different from the next kilometre.

“Keep quiet and stop saying what you don’t know. I’m a professor in this field. You don’t understand anything. I understand engineering very well. You have no knowledge of what you ask. You have no knowledge of what you’re asking.”

Oseni, who also refused to back down, responded, “Minister, it’s alright, keep dignifying yourself, and let the world know who you truly are.”

However, justifying the journalist’s question to the minister, Makinde said, “They asked a minister how much is the coastal road is, and then you (Umahi) are dancing around and going to say that no, the next kilometre is different from the next kilometres. Then what is the average cost?

“When we did the Oyo to Iseyin road then, it was about N9.99 billion, almost N10 billion. About 34 or 35 kilometres, average cost is about N238 million per kilometre.

“But when we did Iseyin to Ogbomoso, that was 76 kilometres, it was about N43 billion, average cost is about N500 million per kilometre. And we had two bridges, one over the Ogun river and then one at Ogbomoso end.”

The PUNCH reports that last year, the Federal Government announced the commencement of construction work on the 700km Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway, which spans nine states and includes two spurs leading to the northern states.

Umahi made the announcement during the official handover of the first phase of the project, made up of 47.47 kilometers of dual carriageway, to Hitech Construction Company Limited, and which is to be constructed in concrete pavement.

This was contained in a statement issued by his Special Adviser (Media), Uchenna Orji.

According to him, the Minister who was in company with the Federal Ministry of Works’ Controller in charge of Lagos State, Mrs O. I. Kesha, emphasised the need for all contractors handling Federal Government’s road projects to deliver within a record time, noting that the government would not allow variation arising from delays or slow pace of work once mobilisation had been done.

Politics

2027: Oyo Gov, Makinde Speaks On Successor

Published

1 day ago

October 9, 2025

Editor

Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State has said that the choice of who would succeed him in 2027 rests solely with the people of the state, not with political godfathers or entitlement claims.

Makinde said this on Thursday in Ibadan while flagging off the zonal stakeholders’ consultative forum and engagement meeting on the 2026 Budget.

According to the governor, the decision of who becomes the next governor of Oyo state rests on all eligible voters in the state.

“Oyo State has gone beyond the era of politics based on entitlement or propaganda.

“Rather, the people of the state are now more politically enlightened and they will only support leaders who present credible plans and demonstrate capacity for development,” he said.

Makinde, while reflecting on his own experience before coming into office in 2019, noted that leadership must be about accountability, not entitlement.

He recalled that many people doubted his capability when he first sought the governorship position, because he had not held any political office.

“In 2018, when I was consulting to become governor, there was no yardstick to measure me. I had never been a councillor or a local government chairman, but I asked the people to trust me and judge me by my actions,” he said.

The governor urged political leaders to focus on policies and projects that directly impact the lives of citizens rather than engaging in political theatrics.

He said his administration’s approach to challenges has been to present a clear roadmap for Oyo State’s development, “one that people can read, evaluate, and hold us accountable to.”

Makinde expressed optimism that the people of the state would continue to support leaders who prioritise progress, inclusivity, and the well-being of citizens over personal ambition.

Speaking at the 7th Stakeholders Consultative Forum, the governor said that his administration would continue to consult and engage with residents of the state on the making of the state’s annual budgets, with a view to knowing their aspirations and prioritising their needs.

He maintained that the stakeholders’ engagement was to enable his government to serve the residents of the state better through a bottom-up approach to development, noting that his administration began the tradition in 2019.

According to him, his government first separated the Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning from the Ministry of Finance in order to ensure better management of the state’s resources and to avoid discrepancies.

He stated that the stakeholders’ engagement had resulted in better budget performances and economic development of the state.

Makinde reiterated that his government would continue to serve the interests of the people of the state by putting in place institutions that would ensure that the environment was safe and ready to attract investments.

He added that the state was growing rapidly and that this development had stopped rural-urban migration with the construction of Moniya-Iseyin Road, Iseyin-Ogbomoso Road, Oyo-Iseyin Road, among other infrastructural projects, which have opened rural communities.

Makinde is currently serving as governor for the second time.

The governor, whose term ends in 2027, had earlier this month advocated a single term of five or six years for elected political office holders across all levels of government in Nigeria, against the current double term of four years each.

He said a single term of five or six years is enough for any government to focus and serve the people and deliver on its mandate.

(NAN)